2000 Draft Class - It can always be worse:

[Obeg]

Led down a rabbit hole from the picture of Reggie White that Gantt posted on Twitter - I ran across the 2000 draft class (the year Reggie played for us).

Oh my that was a really epically bad one.  The only shiny light was Hoooooover as a UDFA

[Ricky Spanish]

Deon Grant had a solid career though. 

[CRA]

5 minutes ago, stbugs said:

The 2011 draft class was the worst. Having the 1st overall pick was good and I love Cam but the top 11 of that draft was littered with all pros/HOFers.

The rest of the draft was atrocious. It might even be up there with worst ever. There were 7 other drafted players who played a total of 7 years with the Panthers. So even with a 4 year rookie deal, we got 7, mostly bad, years out of 7 players drafted.

So on average, outside of having the 1st overall pick, we cut every other player after their rookie year. I didn’t even know that was possible in the salary cap era. 

I'll take a 2011 draft featuring a Cam Newton over a 2009 type class though.  Best pick of that was our 7th rounder. 

[Dex]

2016 was pretty awful considering how recent it was and we lost Bradberry.

[LinvilleGorge]

12 minutes ago, stbugs said:

The 2011 draft class was the worst. Having the 1st overall pick was good and I love Cam but the top 11 of that draft was littered with all pros/HOFers.

The rest of the draft was atrocious. It might even be up there with worst ever. There were 7 other drafted players who played a total of 7 years with the Panthers. So even with a 4 year rookie deal, we got 7, mostly bad, years out of 7 players drafted.

So on average, outside of having the 1st overall pick, we cut every other player after their rookie year. I didn’t even know that was possible in the salary cap era. 

Landing a franchise QB by itself easily puts it over 2000 where our best pick was a decent FS who wasn't signed to a second contract. That's an utterly atrocious draft.

[DaveThePanther2008]

5 minutes ago, LinvilleGorge said:

Landing a franchise QB by itself easily puts it over 2000 where our best pick was a decent FS who wasn't signed to a second contract. That's an utterly atrocious draft.

Lester Towns was average considering he was a 7th rounder.

Sadly our best pickup was UDFA Brad Hoover. 

[Mr. Scot]

Anderson was terrible. If I remember correctly, we ended up with him because he impressed Siefert at the Senior Bowl. Man, what a total whiff.

I remember one ex Panthers employee describing Deon Grant as being the absolute dumbest player he ever met. He could play, but off the field he was apparently dumb as a brick.

Jeno James at least had a decent season or two with us. I believe he was a member of the starting line for the Super Bowl season.

And I'd add that for as bad as that draft class was, Seifert did a hell of a lot better the following year.

[LinvilleGorge]

7 minutes ago, stbugs said:

Oh I get that. Obviously, someone like @Car123 loved it so he has to poop on anything negative, but Cam was the #1 overall pick. The result was great but it wasn’t hard.

I just think it is truly amazing that the 7 non Cam picks played a total of 7 years. You mention someone not signing a second contract, these 7 lasted an average of 1 year with us.

It’s kind of sad that we are discussing horrific drafts and there’s a bunch to choose from and we just celebrated our 25th anniversary. Kind of like an every 4 year experience to have a draft where we get 0 or 1 useful player and then backup level and worse guys. 2019 comes to mind for the most recent.

Probably a main reason why we haven’t had back to back winning seasons.

Yep. Our draft history has been incredibly spotty. Our spendy FA history has arguably been even worse. Poor roster management has definitely been the biggest thing holding us back as a franchise. Fox and Rivera weren't great, but they both also showed the ability to win when provided with the sporadic quality roster.

[kungfoodude]

1 hour ago, stbugs said:

Oh I get that. Obviously, someone like @Car123 loved it so he has to poop on anything negative, but Cam was the #1 overall pick. The result was great but it wasn’t hard.

I just think it is truly amazing that the 7 non Cam picks played a total of 7 years. You mention someone not signing a second contract, these 7 lasted an average of 1 year with us.

It’s kind of sad that we are discussing horrific drafts and there’s a bunch to choose from and we just celebrated our 25th anniversary. Kind of like an every 4 year experience to have a draft where we get 0 or 1 useful player and then backup level and worse guys. 2019 comes to mind for the most recent.

Probably a main reason why we haven’t had back to back winning seasons.

I am genuinely perplexed by fans that get huffy and butthurt when I say we are a bad franchise historically. 

We do all of the bad franchise things. Remove the two Super Bowl appearances appearances and our accomplishments get really thin, really quickly.

I think original Panthers fans actually begrudgingly know this, versus a lot of our Cam era fans that just jumped on later.

Edited June 17, 2021 by kungfoodude

[Ricky Spanish]

1 hour ago, stbugs said:

Oh I get that. Obviously, someone like @Car123 loved it so he has to poop on anything negative, but Cam was the #1 overall pick. The result was great but it wasn’t hard.

I just think it is truly amazing that the 7 non Cam picks played a total of 7 years. You mention someone not signing a second contract, these 7 lasted an average of 1 year with us.

It’s kind of sad that we are discussing horrific drafts and there’s a bunch to choose from and we just celebrated our 25th anniversary. Kind of like an every 4 year experience to have a draft where we get 0 or 1 useful player and then backup level and worse guys. 2019 comes to mind for the most recent.

Probably a main reason why we haven’t had back to back winning seasons.

It's almost like we had the same dipshit putting shitty teams together for half of our existence as a franchise because he was friends with the owner...

[Mr. Scot]

30 minutes ago, Ricky Spanish said:

It's almost like we had the same dipshit putting shitty teams together for half of our existence as a franchise because he was friends with the owner...

Nah, it couldn't be that

[Mr. Scot]

3 hours ago, Obeg said:

Led down a rabbit hole from the picture of Reggie White that Gantt posted on Twitter

Speaking of...

 

[hepcat]

3 hours ago, LinvilleGorge said:

Landing a franchise QB by itself easily puts it over 2000 where our best pick was a decent FS who wasn't signed to a second contract. That's an utterly atrocious draft.

2009 was way worse

[Eazy-E]

3 hours ago, Dex said:

2016 was pretty awful considering how recent it was and we lost Bradberry.

If you include outside factors 2016 was by far the worst. I think every Panther fan wanted one of the two Henry’s with our first pick and Gettlefug decided to use our top pick on a small school back up DT (DT was arguably our strongest position group at the time) and then triple dip on boom or bust CBs. Did Sandland ever even catch a football in a Panthers uniform?
 

His fug up with Norman basically caused him to tank the entire draft. 15-1 to 6-10 and missing the playoffs is quite the accomplishment. Don’t see how you can argue another draft was worse.